“againsters”? I Generally Refer To Them As “elitists Idiots” , But Okay.…

Well, well, it seem that our friends over at the Jamaica Observer are final­ly com­ing to their sens­es .…well at least those in the Editorial divi­sion to some degree.
It’s not very often that this medi­um have rea­son to laud aspects of the Jamaican media , nev­er­the­less when they get it right we must com­mend them for doing the right thing.

I like the new term , the “Againsters,” don’t you?
I gen­er­al­ly refer to the peo­ple whom have earned the ire of the edi­to­r­i­al board as the know noth­ing elites from above Cross Roads but I can change.…

My only con­cern with the Editorial is that as could be expect­ed, it missed the most press­ing issue affect­ing the Island.
Literally every issue of which the Article speak below is of para­mount importance.
Nevertheless, the largest issue affect­ing the coun­try and has been for decades, has been the pro­lif­er­a­tion of vio­lent crime.
Yet they missed it.

Newspapers report news .
Editorial boards opine, they shape opinions .
It is up to the peo­ple on Editorial boards who write opin­ion pieces like these to bring press­ing issues to the fore and keep them there.
Is there any won­der that despite the fright­en­ing lev­els of homi­cides , rapes, abduc­tions and gen­er­al law­less­ness in the coun­try the aver­age per­son ratio­nal­izes , nuance and make excus­es for it?

Oh you have cer­tain­ly heard the excuses .
Crime de ebery weh.
A nu Jumeka alone it a gwan.
A ungle peo­ple weh inna scam­ming a ded.
If yu nu gu certin place yu awrite.

The list of stu­pid excus­es is long.
Could it be that the peo­ple who shape opin­ion are not doing what they ought to-to bring the appro­pri­ate lev­els of aware­ness to the top­i­cal issues?
Crime is suck­ing the life blood of the Nation, on aver­age 4 Jamaicans lose their lives vio­lent­ly each day.
Many more are scarred for the long term as a result of vio­lent crimes against their persons.
The trau­ma vis­it­ed on the inno­cent is immea­sur­able, we may nev­er know the col­lec­tive cost it is hav­ing on the society .

What we do know is that it sti­fles the Gross Domestic Product.
Investors are shy about com­ing to risk their mon­ey and their lives.
Jamaicans in the dias­po­ra are not return­ing to live like they once did.
This loss is sig­nif­i­cant as they are keep­ing their resources out of the coun­try as well .

Yet Crime the Elephant in the room is not on the list of the Editorial.
Neither of the projects men­tioned has the sig­nif­i­cance of the impact crime is hav­ing on the coun­try, though they are unde­ni­ably important.
The Editorial labelled the peo­ple “again­sters, per­pet­u­al­ly pes­simistic” they are, but the peo­ple doing the name call­ing are equal­ly with­out vision in my opinion.

Jamaican policymakers must ignore the ‘againsters’.

Jamaica has a group of peo­ple who can be regard­ed as the ‘again­sters’— a per­pet­u­al­ly pes­simistic bunch who can nev­er see any good in any plans for the future.

The ‘again­sters’ opposed Universal Adult Suffrage, which gave the vote to Jamaicans 21 and over, then they opposed mov­ing the vot­ing age from 21 to 18; they thought Independence was fool­ish­ness; they were against the build­ing of the National Stadium and the National Arena. The ‘again­sters’ saw no use­ful pur­pose in a National Housing Trust (NHT); they opposed build­ing a new Parliament; they were against the high­ways and toll roads; they con­demned Emancipation Park and every­thing else that even slight­ly resem­bled a lega­cy project.

Had our pol­i­cy­mak­ers lis­tened to these ‘again­sters’ it is dif­fi­cult to imag­ine where Jamaica would be at this time. Look at what the sta­di­um and are­na have become to our world-class athletes.

Try to visu­alise a Jamaica with­out the NHT and its val­ue to thou­sands of home­own­ers; imag­ine the main east-west cor­ri­dor by way of Mount Diablo and Flat